The new book features protagonists seeking new beginnings, struggling to escape substance abuse or harmful partnerships, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. Kraus frequently uses the phrase "clean slate", transforming it into willfully cynical through recurring use. Sentences like "He could make a fresh start" and "They decided to make a fresh start" are scattered across the narrative. And yet, Kraus herself is embarking on her own fresh start, since this presents as a new kind of book – documentarian, truly literary. But then it proves to be filled with the same dilemmas and aesthetics as her previous works.
From Accidental Writer to Cult Classic
Kraus began as an artist who entered the literary world unintentionally with her 1997 seminal work I Love Dick, structured as epistles to an unresponsive love interest, elevating personal female narrative from abjection into rebellion. She continued writing, but the following three engaging and challenging novels missed the impact and rawness that the epistolary style imparted to the narrative voice of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her role as a renegade artist who had evolved into a extensive real estate holder, so there was considerable focus on property transactions. It makes sense that she now wants to try out new kinds of material, directing her gaze to other people's stories, at a moment when she claims that current political era makes confessional writing unnecessary.
Three Generations, Shared Inescapable History
The Four Spent the Day Together is structured in three parts, covering three generations – each trapped by their histories. We encounter the narrative about a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, relocating from the New York borough to rural Connecticut. There is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of a figure named Catt Greene, confronting the late recognition of I Love Dick, the rise of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction a man named Paul. Finally the story of the murder of one lost young man by another in a locality long abandoned by liberal ideals only a short distance from the protagonist's home in the Minnesota countryside.
For this reader drawn to honed writing of the kind the author herself typically rejects, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the first section.
As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that Kraus tends to eschew, I was won over by the storytelling approach of the first section. There is a novel degree of detail that allows space for minutiae, like the bucket that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the start of the story, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she says; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms tumbling in their mouths like piece candy". She tells the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."
Letdown and Fragmentation
I was bound to become frustrated when I wished this different style could continue through the novel. The author states here that she is annoyed by the enjoyment readers like me have taken from I Love Dick; she's committed to fragmentation, to the unpolished style she shares with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels returns in the second segment. Catt is working on refurbishing three dozen dilapidated units in the most troubled areas of Albuquerque while moving between Minnesota and LA, unable to aid her husband manage his alcohol use. She experiences powerlessness as Paul moves between low-resource employment as an substance abuse counselor in a society propelled by the anger and fear that underpins Trump's victory. Multiple pages are devoted about the protagonist facing cancellation on Twitter, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. The author still appears to invest excessive emotion about this. In a moment she remarks that she's researching the homicide so that before exiting the region, "she could potentially understand something about an the nation that her social media opponents would fail to comprehend, would not even perceive".
The Homicide Account
Then we reach to the actual killing – and the referenced day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his friends. The author possesses great source material, and reconstructs step by step what occurred as a man named Brandon came to visit Brittney after connecting via an application where she marketed explicit images. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day with her companions, loitering having his vehicle repaired and paying for snacks and drugs, before being murdered by Brittney's boyfriend Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has repeatedly received inpatient care for aggressive outbursts.
Obsession and Unfinished Business
The protagonist becomes fixated by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that Kraus's dual urges towards accurate chronicling and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to go further into her personal fixations here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who comes alive partly through Catt seeing herself in her – yet another intelligent, harassed young woman spiraling out of control in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that Catt converses with Brittney in prison, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The whole section feels oddly unfinished, to the degree that the author's storytelling ends almost mid-par
